Who will be the next great dictator?

[Mn_Mark]

Re: Who will be the next great dictator?

Who is out there posed to be the next dictator?

Best candidate I can see at the moment is Obama.

He is in a position of great power, has a Congress supporting him, and has the seemingly unlimited power to issue Executive Orders.

He has the arrogance. "I won." "The time for discussion is over."

He has the worldview: leftism, socialism. The idea that government knows best, that "equality" is a higher value than freedom.

He has the adoring followers who practically worship him. A cult of personality. Just look at how many magazine covers he is on.

He is considered by some to be a good speaker, at least when reading a prepared speech.

Frankly I can't think of what else would be needed in a dictator. Now all he needs is a sufficiently desperate economic environment to justify suspending normal Constitutional protections. Isn't that what his hero, Lincoln, did during the Civil War? Can't he use FDR as a precendent for introducing all sorts of new intrusive Executive Orders? If FDR had the power to unilaterally, with a stroke of his pen, forbid citizens from owning gold - something the Constitution specifically designated as money - what could Obama not justify if he wanted to?

I think we've already got our own Hugo Chavez in power here.

[flintlock]

Re: Who will be the next great dictator?

We are nearing peak everything. But who knows what black swans good or bad await. A virus kills 200 million. A new energy is created. Did you really see the internet coming? In the end we will move away from economies based on infinite growth but when and at what price.

That said: I am up for the job.

You have my vote.

[flintlock]

Re: Who will be the next great dictator?

I just don't think Obama has the balls for it. He's a lightweight when all is said and done and the campaigning is over. It's going to be someone who really wants that power, not just the adoration. Hillary would be more likely.

I don't think the world knows the guy yet. He's drinking in some bar now, planning his moves.

He/She wouldn't even have to necessarily be all evil. Even Napoleon was a blessing compared to what France had been through with The Terror. Codified the laws, etc. The thing all these types have had in common is an extremely strong will to do whatever is necessary to achieve that ambition. In the past that always meant reliance on brute force. Perhaps things have changed and the Bankers will be able to achieve the same result using debt as a sword instead.

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: Who will be the next great dictator?

The problem today is informaton travels so fast. It will be a stealth dictator ship like Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, we all know he is a dictator but no one condemns him for it in fact the hollywood elite love the guy. So i say it will be Obama... IF he wins again in 2012 they will change the law for him to run again in 2016!!!!

[kelton56]

Re: Who will be the next great dictator?

It will be the AntiChrist, of course, someone born on June 6 1966 at 7:06am (6th hour, 66th minute) somewhere in the U.S., so it isn't Obama.

Better start checking birth records to narrow it down.

Since it won't be Obama, he (or she) will be the ONE after Obama.

Cue frightening music...

[charliebrown]

Re: Who will be the next great dictator?

In our current state of affairs I think the men with the powdered wigs we all make fun of maybe weren't so stupid after all. They mistrusted banks, paper money, strong central governments, a standing army etc.

One of them wrote. "We hold these truths to be self evident. That all men are created equal that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. To protect these rights governments are instituted, deriving their power from the consent of the governed."

Why I mention this is that in the long past, it was the king's, or state's right to decide who lives and who dies. This clause was inserted in the declaration to say, No the rights we have come from God and the state cannot take them away.

Now I dont want a theocracy, but if we have an athiest as dictator we have no unalienable rights, if we have an agnostic i guess we dont know if we have any rights. i make the logical jump that if we dont know then we dont have them when push comes to shove. So I am praying the dictator is thesitic and believes in the God given unalienable rights of men.

OK, this is all namby-pamby philisophical stuff. but hey I think part of the problem with our society today is that we dont reflect enough on our core beliefs and end up with a hodge podge of ideas that if looked at closely would be self contradictory and unfocused.

IMHO.

[thisandthat.nowandth]

Re: Who will be the next great dictator?

and end up with a hodge podge of ideas that if looked at closely would be self contradictory and unfocused.

Congratulations! You just managed to define my current economic thesis - in 20 words or less

Dictator: What is a cross between a politician and a potato.

I'm left with no choice but to nominate Idaho darkhorse; Senator Larry Craig.

[LazyBoy]

Re: Who will be the next great dictator?

We're either going to get a revolution or a Soma-conducted dystopia (or is it a dystopia to 'us' and a utopia to 'them'?). I believe significant social unrest will arrive no later than 2010 in the US as the Depression kicks in. Frankly there will be a race betwen chaos and the efficacies of modern technologies to suppress dissent. They have the technology and the drugs today to have us enjoy our oppression rather nicely ala The Matrix. Viewed in this context, the early prototypes, blunt-force Mussolini-Franco fascism, were crude test-beds, interrupted works-in-pogress.

Given these dark thoughts, what are you doing about it?
Do you see anywhere better than the US to ride this out?

[touchring]

Re: Who will be the next great dictator?

Given these dark thoughts, what are you doing about it?
Do you see anywhere better than the US to ride this out?

I think hk will be the best place.

It has all the money of its own, plus the money from china.
It has all the goodies from China - tourists, businessmen without the ills.
It has a limited democratic system - but at least functional and not pseudo.
It has low a crime rate - guns are not allowed.
It has been through very severe real estate crashes, the 50% price crash kind, twice in recent times, in 1997 and 2003.
It is strategically important to China as a role model because of the Taiwan issue.

The disadvantage is it's proxmity to china and first to be hit by birdflu pandemic if there were to be one, and bad air from pollution blown over from China.

[flintlock]

Re: Who will be the next great dictator?

I think hk will be the best place.



The only disadvantage is it's proxmity to china ...

Not exactly a minor disadvantage. I'm convinced might will make right in the future. So you either pick the winning side or lay low in an out of the way backwater nobody is interested in.

[touchring]

Re: Who will be the next great dictator?

Not exactly a minor disadvantage. I'm convinced might will make right in the future. So you either pick the winning side or lay low in an out of the way backwater nobody is interested in.

There's no winning side, in a financial crisis everyone loses, the only difference is who loses more.

Indonesia had 80% of its gdp blown up and went into social chaos when a few of its major banks collapsed. Whichever country with strong banks will be better off. It's as simple as that.

[Munger]

Re: Who will be the next great dictator?

You can't mix definitions like that and say they are the same, unless you are colloquilaizing the argument.

The two statements above are NOT the same

One negates god, the other negates the belief in god THEREFORE the one that negates god would be athesitic the one that negates belief would be agnostic.

Just like 1 - 1 = 0 is not the same as 1 - (-)1 = 2. A result of 0 and a result of 2, are not the same result.

I did not mean to say the statements are the same. I meant to say that you seem to consider the strongly negative statement the definition of atheism. I was trying to point out that many, if not most, atheists consider themselves atheist by way of the weakly negative statement.

[flintlock]

Re: Who will be the next great dictator?

I agree. I was speaking of a military winner. I think at some point the sword will once again trump all. Who knows, perhaps China cuts a deal with the US. Give us Hong Kong and we'll let the dollar devaluation slide. Anything can happen.

[touchring]

Re: Who will be the next great dictator?

I agree. I was speaking of a military winner. I think at some point the sword will once again trump all. Who knows, perhaps China cuts a deal with the US. Give us Hong Kong and we'll let the dollar devaluation slide. Anything can happen.

so u opt for a bush solution.

[Masterburg]

Re: Who will be the next great dictator?

Given these dark thoughts, what are you doing about it?
Do you see anywhere better than the US to ride this out?

Sarah PALIN